


Chapter & Verse

by bachelorgirl



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-07
Updated: 2007-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachelorgirl/pseuds/bachelorgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto Jones. He's a crafty one, that he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter & Verse

Jack was sitting at his desk, swirling a small amount of whiskey around in the bottom of the glass. He was so absorbed in watching the amber liquid move around the glass that he hadn't even noticed Ianto standing on the other side of his desk until he cleared his throat lightly.

 _'That was the thing about Ianto,'_ Jack thought. _'You didn't notice him. Until he wanted you to. And, when you finally did notice him... Well, he made his presence known.'_

Jack reached over for another glass, poured a similar amount of liquid into the new glass, and slid the first across the desk towards Ianto.

"Thank you, sir. No," Ianto replied, sliding the glass across the desk.

Jack pushed the glass back across the table without looking up. "We're toasting."

"I've nothing to toast this evening."

"If you're going to insist on being here until all hours of the night, you're obligated to save me from drinking alone." Jack gestured to the glass.

Ianto reached out and grasped the tumbler in his fingers, tracing the rim of the glass with his index finger. Slow, steady counterclockwise circles that were oddly mesmerizing. It was only when Ianto began to trace circles in the opposite direction that Jack blinked himself back to reality.

Jack watched as Ianto settled himself back onto his heels, still grasping the glass. Ianto looked at Jack confidently, expectantly.

"You've nothing to toast, then?" Jack asked, clearing his throat.

Ianto shook his head slightly, the movement barely perceptible.

Jack raised his glass and looked carefully at Ianto as he spoke. "To all the girls we've loved before."

"Does this part of the evening come with a soundtrack, sir?"

"Only if you ask nicely." Jack smiled.

Ianto raised his eyebrows and remained silent.

Jack laughed and he thought he saw the beginnings of a smile in Ianto's eyes. "The lad doesn't say much," Jack said, tipping his glass towards Ianto. _'At least not with his voice.'_

"I lost Lisa, sir," Ianto said, raising his glass towards Jack and looking him dead in the eye.

It was only because Jack had been staring, looking for the smile in his eyes that he noticed, for the first time, that Ianto didn't visibly flinch when he said her name. His voice was calm and matter-of-fact and somehow more _together_.

Ianto just stared at Jack, his eyes empty and emotionless. There was a brief moment of sadness that Jack wouldn't have noticed had he not been staring so intently. It was a moment that disappeared in less than the blink of an eye and that was miles from the expression of lingering despair that Jack had come to expect when someone said something to remind Ianto of Lisa. Or, occasionally when no one had said anything at all, but when Ianto was alone with his thoughts when he thought no one was looking.

Jack wondered when this shift happened, though not surprised that he'd missed it. It wasn't like he knew everything there was to know about Ianto Jones. In fact, it's not like he knew anything about Ianto Jones that wasn't a matter of public - or classified - record.

Ianto stared at him, waiting. Patient and unmoving as ever. Ianto had a way of asking a question without asking a question at all, waiting until Jack felt compelled to explain. "Someone I loved a long time ago. Several lifetimes, feels like. When I was a different person with a different life. Had to say goodbye again not so long ago, though." Jack took all the thoughts of rain and darkness and fairies and shoved them as far back into the reaches of his mind as he could.

Ianto bent forward and clinked the rim of his glass with Jack's. "New chapter, then?"

"New book," Jack said firmly, downing the burning liquid in a single gulp and trying to drink away the memory.

Ianto shook his head and smoothly swallowed the contents of his glass. "Some people's books are longer than others, but it's all part of the same story."

"Some of us have volumes," Jack replied, setting his glass on the table and spinning it in stationary circles.

Ianto reached out and covered Jack's glass with his hand to stop the spinning. He placed his glass gently on the edge of Jack's desk and, staring calmly at Jack, seemed to consider this for a moment. "Perhaps you do. Goodnight, sir."

~ * ~ * ~ 

Jack stretched his arms high above his head as he walked towards his desk and winced only a little when his shoulder cracked audibly. "That's the last time I climb up the outside of a building after one of those ungrateful bastards," he mumbled bitterly under his breath.

He collapsed into what felt like a million-kilo weight into his desk chair. He shook his head and said, "Yeah, whatever. I give it another," he looked at his watch, "three hours. If I'm lucky. Maybe if we're lucky evil will take the morning off." Jack closed his eyes and reached out for the mug of coffee that was waiting for him on the corner of his desk, next to his --

The mug that was _usually_ waiting for him.

"Ianto?" Jack said, none too loudly. He was certain that Ianto was probably comfortably within yelling distance. Ianto had an uncanny ability to pretty much always be right where he was supposed to be.

As if on cue, Ianto appeared in the doorway, holding a familiar-looking mug of coffee in his hands.

"Something unexpected come up on your rounds of the base this morning to distract you from your coffee-making mission?" Jack asked with a lighthearted smile, reaching for the mug gratefully.

"No, sir," Ianto replied, handing the mug over to him.

"Because you know that coffee is pretty high on the morning hierarchy. I think it comes in only after 'direct evidence of nuclear warfare' and 'complete lockdown of the hub'. And, definitely well before 'partial or complete loss of limbs, senses, and other bodily functions'. Thank you, Ianto," Jack replied, taking a long sip. "I didn't think you ever went home long enough to get stuck in traffic on your way back in in the morning."

"Is there anything else I can get you this morning, sir?" Ianto laid a hand softly on Jack's forearm, so briefly that Jack couldn't be entirely sure that he hadn't imagined it after the moment had passed.

"Umm, no. Not that I can think of."

"Have a good morning, sir. Ring if you need anything. I'll be around."

As Ianto quickly left the office, deftly picking up the two whiskey glasses that he'd left on the desk the night before without missing a beat, Jack shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

Jack shifted in his chair, as if trying to get comfortable. There was something slightly off, but he couldn't seem to put his finger on it. Every day, Jack's mornings went off like clockwork. But, today it had almost felt like time had stopped. Just for a moment.

~ * ~ * ~ 

"New suit?" Jack asked as Ianto stepped through the door of his office carrying Jack's coffee mug. The same way he had for the eighth time in as many mornings. Jack had been counting. For scientific purposes. Ianto was steady as a clock and far more reliable. And, yet, for more than a week now, Jack's coffee wasn't waiting - the perfect temperature and strong enough to choke a horse - for him on his desk on the mornings where he was lucky enough to start his day, working up to the next impossible mission with a cup of coffee and a chance to organize the previous days' paperwork. Something was different.

"In a manner of speaking, yes, " Ianto replied as he handed the mug to Jack.

Jack smiled at him. "Lucky me."

"Are you going to have a formal meeting to discuss it, then?" Ianto asked, not missing a beat and speaking as though Jack should have every idea what he was talking about.

"To discuss what, Ianto?"

"The suit, sir." Ianto's voice was sure and steady. As unrevealing of emotion as ever, the Welsh vowels rolling easily off his tongue as he looked at Jack, wearing the same expression of expectation that he wore when he was waiting for Jack to make an important announcement or hand out tasks during an assignment.

"Why would that be necessary?" Jack would have been confused, were this type of question not completely within the realities of Ianto's character. He knew that there was some sort of explanation. Whether or not it was to be forthcoming was an entirely different matter.

"The other one is the cute suit, sir. And, I'm thinking you're running out of rhymes for the word 'suit'. You might need to bring in reinforcements to collaborate on this one." Ianto's expression was completely serious, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that belied the teasing.

Jack tipped his head back and laughed. That was just like Ianto. Calm and unassuming and likely to sneak in a joke at any interval, so smoothly and buried amongst the rest of his, albeit minimal, conversation that it went completely unnoticed until he wanted to let you in on it. Not to mention Ianto's love of pushing other people's buttons.

Jack smiled at Ianto whilst looking him up and down. "The other one might be getting a demotion."

"Some day, someone's going to report you for harassment, sir," Ianto said with a smile, confidently arranging some mislaid files on Jack's desk without so much as a glance at what he was doing.

"It's too bad that no one bothers to watch the CCTV. I'm sure it's all on there if someone were to look, you know."

Ianto reached over and handed Jack the pen that he was stretching for. He held it out for Jack, silently holding onto it long enough to force Jack to tug for it - a small-scale version of tug-of-war across the span of Jack's desk.

"I don't recall saying that someone was going to be me." Ianto let go of the pen at that moment and pushed himself off the corner of Jack's desk that he'd been lightly perched on, smoothing out the front of his suit as he walked towards the door.

Jack tried his best to not be disappointed when his coffee mug was sitting, full of steaming hot, nearly thick-as-molasses coffee, waiting for him on his desk the following morning, with Ianto nowhere to be seen.

~ * ~ * ~ 

Jack pretended to be focusing on the case report on the table in front of him and watched as Ianto opened the cupboard and started to methodically pile clean plates onto the shelves.

"And, you remember that the Nijimisky file is due at the bureau by 9am and the monthly reports are printing out and should be ready in an hour or so, to be given the once over before I add them to the archives. I've updated the secure archives' inventory catalogue and I've filed the latest incident reports and arranged them in the conference room for the meeting in the morning. Oh, and your dry cleaning is back - in the usual spot, same with Owen's. And, there's a fresh curry in the fridge. For whatever. Or, whenever."

"Have you ever considered that this place would probably fall apart if we ever drove you away?"

"I'm thorough." Ianto looked back at Jack quickly before returning to his tidying.

"At the very least, we'd be late for every appointment and deadline that came our way. And, I'm fairly certain Owen would manage to blow up the coffee machine. And, then I'd have to kill him and, at that point, the whole operation would just crumble before our very eyes. Sometimes, I think that you know more about how this place runs than the rest of us put together."

"All part of the job description."

"Hardly. I'd wager you know even more about the ins and outs of this place than you let on. You could plot to take Torchwood down while we sleep."

"Not that I've ever seen evidence that you do, in fact, sleep, I tried that once," Ianto replied calmly, his back to Jack as he continued to arrange the clean plates in the cupboard. "Wasn't so successful, as you may recall."

Jack instantly fell silent when he saw Ianto pause for the briefest second, take a long slow inhaled breath, let it out quietly, and then resume his tidying. There was a feeling of regret in the pit of Jack's stomach, like a dead weight.

"You would have taken care of it." He'd almost said _'her'_.

"I didn't," Ianto's head shook lightly from side-to-side as he arranged the containers on the counter.

"You would have."

"You don't know that, sir."

Jack shook his head, even though Ianto was still facing away from him. If Torchwood gets to you, it gets into your soul and makes your decisions for you. Jack knew. You don't go from Torchwood One to Torchwood Three voluntarily, unless it'd become a part of who you were. You couldn't escape completely unscathed and unaffected. No matter how much Jack wished that were not the case - for Ianto's sake. "We made it so you didn't have to."

Ianto turned and looked at Jack with an expression that made Jack uncomfortable because he was entirely unable to read it, though it seemed to fill the room. "Yes, you did."

Jack shivered.

~ * ~ * ~ 

"I love the smell of decomposing non-human life forms in the morning," Jack said, picking his way through a pile of alien trash.

"While I appreciate your enthusiasm for the job, since it means you're likely going to be more than willing to take some of my work, it's 4:27am, which is barely even the morning. I've been out of bed for less than an hour, which is only half as long as I was in bed to begin with, I haven't had any caffeine as of yet, and it's raining. Go be enthusiastic in that direction," Owen glowered at Jack through sleep-bleary eyes and waved a hand in the general direction of the opposite side of the crime scene.

"Spoilsport," Jack replied, shining his torch directly in Owen's eyes and beaming at him, before turning to survey the other side of the scene.

Jack picked up the camera that was lying by his side and watched Ianto carefully secure the last of the crime scene tape to the surrounding trees before methodically packing it away and pulling out his clipboard. Jack looked at Ianto through the camera eyepiece.

"You feeling okay this morning?" Jack asked, knowing perfectly well what the answer should be. Ianto had been battling a major virus for the last few days, though he resolutely had not missed a minute of work in the meanwhile. Jack could plainly see that Ianto's fingertips were slightly purple in colour and that the muscles in the back of his neck and shoulders were stiff with the effort not to visibly shiver.

"You didn't have to come out here in this," Jack said half-heartedly. He knew how futile this conversation was going to be.

Ianto straightened his posture and looked Jack dead in the eye and lied, unblinkingly, straight to his face. "I feel one hundred percent."

Jack looked carefully at him. Ianto's eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw was clenched with the cold. He could still see the faint purplish bruising on Ianto's right temple from where he'd been hit with the butt of the rifle in the Brecon Beacons. He could see it in his face - Ianto knew he was lying to Jack.

Jack knew that Ianto was lying.

Just like that day in the country and that stupid game the team was playing when they were putting up the stupid tents.

Ianto knew that Jack knew Ianto was lying.

And, Jack knew that Ianto knew that Jack knew Ianto was lying.

Just like before. And, Jack felt the same sharp pain in his chest.

~ * ~ * ~ 

Jack walked quietly up to where Ianto was standing next to Suzie's once-again lifeless body, writing notes on a clipboard. Documenting, well as best that anyone could document something like this, the events of the last few days. And, how she'd ended up there. Again.

"Thanks for doing this."

"Part of my job, sir."

Jack sighed. Everything was part of Ianto's job. Sometimes it seemed like he could - and would - do anything. Usually, that meant he was left with the bits that no one else wanted. Like this. Or, the ones that no one else had thought about. Like his PDA tracking the SUV after it was stolen. Or, relaying his mobile through the water tower so they could phone the police- because while that hadn't been a load of laughs (at least not on their end of the conversation, anyway), it had been the only oasis of calm thought in the midst of total and utter chaos.

"No, I should be doing it, but..." Jack trailed off. He just couldn't. And, he hated to admit it, but he'd known that Ianto would. He sighed and leaned back against the wall of storage drawers with a sigh.

"One day, we're going to run out of space..." Jack trailed off again. It was one of those times where there just *wasn't* a complete thought to finish his sentences. Ianto knew what he wasn't saying.

"If you're interested," Jack heard Ianto begin. "I've still got that stopwatch."

Jack looked over at Ianto. He was used to Ianto's random statements. They all made perfect sense, eventually. But, that didn't mean that Jack was always with him from the beginning. "So?"

Ianto smiled lightly at him, gathering all of Jack's attention with that simple gesture.

"Well, think about it. Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch."

Jack's mind lurched to a loud, screeching halt. He looked over at Ianto and he knew. He wasn't sure how, but he knew. And, he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to have been surprised by the proposition or not. Which was for the best, as he couldn't tell if he was surprised or not.

Jack had never met a proposition he couldn't meet at least halfway and smiled suggestively over at Ianto. "Oh, yeah. I can think of a few."

"There's quite a list." The confidence in Ianto's gaze as he spoke nearly floored Jack. And, the expression of mischief that was lingering in the background actually caused Jack's heart to skip a beat.

"I'll send the others home early. See you in my office in ten." Jack made a show of checking his watch.

Ianto pulled the stopwatch from his pocket. "That's ten minutes..." he paused and clicked the stopwatch into motion. "And counting."

Jack smiled and headed out, rather eager to send the rest of his team on their way.

"Oh, Jack?"

Jack stopped in his tracks, unsure of what was coming next. "What do you want me to say on the death certificate?"

Back to work. Efficient and reliable and unpredictably as predictable as ever. "Good question."

"She had quite a few deaths, in the end."

Jack sighed and paused, thinking. This was an easier answer to come up with than he wished it were. "I don't know. Death by Torchwood."

"I'll put a lock on the door, just in case she goes walking again."

"Nah, no chance of that. The resurrection days are over, thank God." He turned and headed for the door.

"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure."

Jack stopped. He was amazed by how Ianto had that effect over him. Stop him instantly in his tracks. Never saying anything that wasn't entirely worth hearing.

"That's the thing about gloves, sir. They come in pairs."

Jack turned and looked at Ianto, who merely paused for a small moment and resumed writing on his clipboard.

Jack stood, silently watching him for a beat before he turned and left, once again amazed and confused by Ianto Jones all at the same time. He was a crafty one, that one.

~ * ~ * ~ 

Jack was entirely unsurprised when he walked into his office 13 minutes later - he'd had a hell of a time convincing Tosh that, really, she wanted to go home and stay there for the remainder of the night. Owen and Gwen'd been happy enough for the dismissal, thank goodness - Ianto was waiting for him, leaning slightly against Jack's desk. Jack saw him click the stopwatch to a halt with a small smile.

"I'm late." It came out more apologetic than he was intending.

"Fortunately, this party was waiting for you." Ianto consulted his stopwatch, before turning the face towards Jack. "For the extra three minutes and 26 seconds that it took you to show."

"And, what did you do in those extra 3 minutes and 26 seconds?"

"You'll find out soon enough." Ianto replied, picking up an empty whiskey glass that was sitting beside him and handing it to Jack, his eyes steady on Jack's. He trailed his fingers slowly across the inside of Jack's wrist as he withdrew his hand and reached for the bottle on the desk. Jack didn't even bother to try to stop his eyes from closing involuntarily. They both knew why they were here. Pretense would be a waste of time. He only opened them again when he heard the faint sound of liquid pouring into the glass he held in his hand.

"Trying to ease your way into this?" Jack asked with a small, teasing smile.

Ianto shook his head. "Not necessary on my end." He paused and asked, not unconfidently, "Would you like a bigger portion?" He smiled at Jack.

"Entirely unnecessary. This number one on the list, then?" Jack asked as Ianto poured himself a glass as well.

"Something like that," Ianto replied. He reached out and placed the hand that was holding the stopwatch loosely, but confidently, on Jack's hip as he tipped his glass towards Jack's.

"You have something to toast tonight, Ianto." It was supposed to be a question. It wasn't. There was nothing in Ianto's eyes that wasn't completely sure and directed.

"A new chapter, if you will." Ianto clinked his glass lightly with Jack's.

"Oh, I will," Jack replied, clinking back. "I most definitely will."

Ianto nodded and, keeping his eyes glued to Jack, swiftly downed the contents of his glass and watched as Jack did the same. He reached up between them and grabbed the glasses by the rims and set them down beside him on the desk.

Jack hadn't adverted his gaze, so he didn't see the glasses get placed on the table, the same as he didn't see Ianto bring his other hand to rest on Jack's other hip. He placed his hands lightly on the desk on either side of Ianto's thighs, moving himself to stand between his slightly parted legs.

When Ianto leaned forward to press his lips against Jack's, Jack leaned forward and met him halfway. As he felt the heat of Ianto's breath, and tasted the whiskey on his lips and tongue, somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jack heard the faint click of the stopwatch, ticking to life at his hip.

 _-End-_


End file.
